


In Theory

by noctilucent



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 03:41:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1065349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noctilucent/pseuds/noctilucent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For what it's worth, Ryugazaki Rei most definitely does not like girls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Theory

Rei, for what it's worth, likes girls. Or so he says.

So when Nagisa stands on tip-toe in the alley behind his house to press their lips together and Rei's entire body feels charged with electricity, he's a little confused. More than a little confused.

"I like girls," he says. The words tumble from his lips and hit the floor between them. Rei's mouth is bone dry as he fights to gather them up and take them back, fumbling for something to say but coming up short.

"Oh," Nagisa says. His cheeks are flushed with cold and nervousness, and his hair is all tousled and he's all delicate lines and gentle angles and he looks so soft and –

"Sorry," they say, at once.

Nagisa looks up at Rei and his eyes are bright with the suggestion of tears. Then he turns and races down the alley.  
Rei thinks he should follow him. He sees the scene play out in his head – he catches Nagisa easily. He is an ex-track-athlete after all. He takes the smaller boy's hand. He... he brushes the hair back from his face, wipes the tears from his eyes. Apologizes.

Perfect, in theory.

In practice, he just sighs and adjusts his glasses before he goes inside.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

It takes ten minutes for Nagisa to show up at Makoto's house, and his parents open the door and they take one look at the boy and usher him inside. They sit him down on the couch and give him a blanket and tell him that Makoto is in the shower and would he like some tea?

Nagisa accepts, gratefully, and makes up some lie about his goldfish dying. The Tachibanas nod knowingly and make him sweet tea. The twins appear a few moments later and try their level best to cheer him up, telling him that their parents are going out for the night and Makoto was going to babysit but now it'll be so much more fun because big brother Nagi is here and they can watch movies and eat cake and chocolate and ice cream.

Then they give him a hug and it helps, a little bit.

Makoto emerges from the shower fifteen minutes later, after his parents leave, and he takes one look at Nagisa and knows exactly what happened. He turns on the TV and gets the twins settled, then drags the smaller boy upstairs.  
Nagisa instantly makes for Makoto's bed and flops face-first into the fluffy mass of pillows, making a tortured noise that's halfway between a groan and a shriek. Makoto has to throw a pillow at him to get him to keep it down. The brunet checks on the kids twice before Nagisa stops howling, and then he comes back upstairs to find the blond sitting up, eyes red and puffy. Makoto sits down on the bed beside him, but says nothing.

"I love him," Nagisa says eventually.

"I know."

Nagisa curls up like a cat, resting his head on Makoto's leg. The taller boy strokes his hair, listening to the twins' laughter filtering up the stairs.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

The next day at school is phenomenally awkward.

Nagisa, being a first-year, doesn't have a single class with Makoto or Haru. That doesn't help. Nagisa, being a first-year, has every single class with Rei. That _really_ doesn’t help. 

When the bell rings for lunch, Nagisa hides behind his books until Rei leaves the classroom and goes to find Haru and Makoto in their usual place, outside by the pool. Despite Makoto's advice (read: threats of bodily harm) Rei eats lunch across the field with his track friends – which isn't totally out of the ordinary. The weird thing is that Nagisa doesn't say a word the entire period. Makoto makes a half-hearted attempt to keep the conversation going, but Haru doesn't exactly help. Nagisa eats half his sandwich, then looks around for someone to give it to, and his eyes flicker toward where Rei is sitting across the field.

Then he gets up and throws it a little too aggressively in the trash.

Even _Haru_ notices something's wrong.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

And when Nanase Haruka corners Rei on his way out of the changing room and doesn't say a word, just arches an oddly-delicate eyebrow and stares into his soul with those piercing blue eyes, Rei thinks he might actually die.

"Whatever you did," Haru says, pinning Rei to the wall with a glare tranquil and menacing like ice-blue flame, "fix it."

With that, Haru turns on his heel and strides away, the picture of composure as always. Rei thinks he might need to sit down and breathe into a brown paper bag _forever _.__

__When Makoto comes out of the showers and puts his hand on Rei's shoulder, the dark-haired boy actually does keel over. Some distant part of him realizes, as Makoto helps him up, that he should really be embarrassed. Then he remembers that he joined the swim club despite not knowing how to swim, and that actually turned out alright._ _

__Then he thinks about the adorable blond ray of sunlight that convinced him to join in the first place and whatever Makoto was saying bounces off the cavernous walls of his empty, empty head and Rei wants very much to crawl into a locker and never come back out._ _

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _

__

__So, despite the fact that _Nagisa started it_ , Rei decides to apologize._ _

__It's not hard to find the boy: he's loud, and he doesn't really do colours that aren't some garish variety of neon, and Rei might maybe possibly have the slightest hint of a sixth sense when it comes to Nagisa._ _

__Not to mention they have all their classes together, and they take the same bus home, and they get off at the same stop, and they've been pointedly ignoring one another's gaze for the past three days._ _

__So it doesn't take a Herculean effort for Rei to track Nagisa down as they get off the bus. It does, however, take a Herculean effort to say words. Like, any words. Really. Anything. Anything would be fine. Anything would be better than the expectant violet gaze that is currently fixated upon him with all the intensity of the sun. _My sun_ , Rei thinks. _My world revolves around you_. Then he thinks, _what the hell?__ _

__He has to fight to keep the concerned look off his face. Rei doesn't really do poetry. Instead, he grits his teeth and says, "Nagisa-kun. I apologize."_ _

__And Nagisa smiles, and it's _radiant_._ _

__Rei blinks. This is... not what he envisioned._ _

__He was poised, calculated, prepared for tears and shouting and possibly even having to fend off small-but-deadly fists. But instead, Nagisa is standing there smiling at him. Rei's mouth is so dry he starts to worry that sand will come out instead of words. "Um," he croaks._ _

__Nagisa looks at him like he's waiting for something. And Ryugazaki Rei, for the first and hopefully last time in his life, has _no idea_ what he's supposed to do. With everything else in the world, there are _patterns_. Trends, points of data, something that Rei can trace and evaluate and understand._ _

__With Nagisa, it's just soft lines and soft hands and soft smiles and a weird rush of heat in his stomach that spreads across his cheeks that he hates but also maybe likes a little bit. It's not minding when the blond boy wriggles up beside him and completely destroys even the suggestion of personal space. It's being tongue-tied and getting all the numbers in his head mixed up. It's that stupid sunny smile._ _

__"I," Rei says. "Uh."_ _

__"It's okay, Rei-chan," Nagisa says, then quickly adds, "-san."_ _

__Rei swallows. Takes a deep breath. Tries and fails to think elegant thoughts. "What?" he says eventually, and then wonders if it's possible to swallow his own tongue. The success rate of that seems low. Nagisa is still smiling._ _

__"It's okay," Nagisa repeats. "I'm the one that should be sorry."_ _

__“No.” Rei says inelegantly. “I like girls.” Rei says extremely inelegantly. Nagisa makes a face that’s half confusion and half pain and somehow still so beautiful that Rei kind of wants to smack him. “But Nagisa-kun… -san…… Nagisa-ch— chan. I like _you_."_ _

__Nagisa’s face lights up and he jumps at Rei and the taller boy almost doesn’t react in time to catch him. But he does catch him. With his face. And it’s awkward and absolutely not beautiful and the angles are all off and it’s perfect. There are fingers tangled in his hair and his glasses are crooked and possibly fogged up and Rei doesn’t care._ _

__“Nagisa-chan,” Rei says, when they finally disentangle themselves from one another. “May I take you on a date?”  
It’s _almost_ elegant, and the smile that lights up Nagisa’s face is well worth the sub-par delivery._ _

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _

__

__Nagisa is always late, and Rei is always early, so Rei tells him to be there at 11:50 and plans to arrive at 12:10. They meet in the middle._ _

**Author's Note:**

> It's December and it's pouring rain and I miss summer and swimming anime so here is a short little thing that I wrote back in August~*~*~ It's my first time posting please be gentle!!! Thank you good night world.


End file.
